7 ms·

If he actually received $20,000 that still seems like a lot? Especially in a world where freelance writing is $0.01-$0.50 (pre-GPT3). And it sounds like at the

If he actually received $20,000 that still seems like a lot? Especially in a world where freelance writing is $0.01-$0.50 (pre-GPT3). And it sounds like at the time it was good money for the artist. I get that he feels like he was given a small amount relative to the great success of Minecraft, but I would hope he also realizes that it was risk free cash.

ekianjo 4y ago
reminds me recently of voice actors who think they are entitled for a bigger piece of the piece just because the game they worked on for a few hours had financial success. Hubris and pretentiousness at its best.
- krisoft 4y ago
  They are free to negotiate as they are pleased. If the producer feels that they can find a cheaper acceptable alternative they will go with that. If they feel what the voice actor is offering is needed they need to pay for it. > the game they worked on for a few hours Voice acting is a hard job, and it takes more time than a “few hours” to get good at it. If you think anyone can do it certainly you can just pay an anybody to do it.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    It can take a lifetime to get good at something, but a few hours of work after that lifetime generally doesn't cost much. Certainly not more than 5 figures.
    - zztop44 4y ago
      You’re free to negotiate whatever contract you want with the voice actors you hire.
      - pclmulqdq 4y ago
        That's what they did in the case of the recent Bayonetta controversy. They actually paid less for the replacement than they were expecting to pay the original actor who wanted more.
        ekianjo 4y ago
        And the game will still sell very well anyway. Problem solved.
    - trhr 4y ago
      A man sails his smoking yacht into a repair shop. The head mechanic goes over with a hammer and slams it against the side of the engine. The engine roars back to life, and the smoke subsides. He submits a bill for $200,000. It is itemized as such: - $1 - Fifteen seconds of labor; striking with hammer - $199,999 - Knowing where to strike
      - squirtlebonflow 4y ago
        Your hyperbole undermines your point.
        trhr 4y ago
        I'm not sure I had a point. I kind of picked a number I thought Julian would have been happy with, since E$20,000 wasn't it.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    > Voice acting is a hard job, and it takes more time than a “few hours” to get good at it. If you think anyone can do it certainly you can just pay an anybody to do it. So it takes a long time to learn how to take good pictures, and therefore every picture you take after being good should be worth 5k USD or something? that's not how things work at all. > Voice acting is a hard job, So all other jobs are easy? That's again pretentiousness at play.
- deleted 4y ago
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nmfisher 4y ago
That was my reaction too, 20,000 (euros) seems quite decent for a tiny freelance engagement, and just skimming the contract, that all seems bog-standard, too. If he didn't think the money was fair, he shouldn't have accepted it. I expect Mojang would have simply pulled the plug and gone with someone else if he had done so. This really just smacks of sour grapes that Mojang was sold for squillions and the author feels entitled to some of that. Legalities aside (the absence of aa signed contract may be a problem) but I don't feel he is morally entitled to anything more than he's already received.
- wheels 4y ago
  Indeed. This was a great deal for the writer. He wasn't part of the team. He was a contract writer. €20k is a lot of dosh for a few pages of text. It smacks of trivializing all of the work of the people who spent months working on it because he feels like he didn't get a big enough piece of the pie. It sounds like that got lost in the fog of war, because otherwise they'd just have said, "Ok, that's enough. We'll just hire someone else for half the price." I honestly suspect the €20k figure was, "Let's offer him a big enough number so that we don't have to be distracted by negotiating this." And then began the long-winded and self-important wall-of-text emails.
- Moru 4y ago
  Mojang was not a tiny indie company though, it already sold millions of copies before the release. Yes, he should have let his agent negotiate the contract. Do what you are good at and let others do what they are good at.
  - dcow 4y ago
    One can both be a small indie studio and also have sold multiple millions of copies of their game. Indie simply means you don't have a publisher. And Mojan didn't.
    - BlueTemplar 4y ago
      Then Activision-Blizzard is indie. You have to at least put a floor on that thing or you fall completely afoul of the common meaning. My rule of thumb would be less than $1 million spent before the first public release ? (Which I assume makes Minecraft indie ?) Now another question is whether you can even call indie those games being advertised and distributed by Steam (or any other platform) where developers are overwelmingly dependent on that platform for like 95%+ of their sales (including keys from third party websites still for that platform) - because dealing with advertisers and distributors was also an extremely important part of the job when games still came in boxes !
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pbhjpbhj 4y ago
The problem with that line of thinking is that Minecraft itself is not worth $2.5 Billion of programmer's time under the same type of analysis. The ending is like the smile on Mona Lisa in my opinion. You can probably pay someone a few hundred dollars to paint that smile ...
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ekianjo 4y ago

reminds me recently of voice actors who think they are entitled for a bigger piece of the piece just because the game they worked on for a few hours had financial success. Hubris and pretentiousness at its best.

krisoft 4y ago
They are free to negotiate as they are pleased. If the producer feels that they can find a cheaper acceptable alternative they will go with that. If they feel what the voice actor is offering is needed they need to pay for it. > the game they worked on for a few hours Voice acting is a hard job, and it takes more time than a “few hours” to get good at it. If you think anyone can do it certainly you can just pay an anybody to do it.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  It can take a lifetime to get good at something, but a few hours of work after that lifetime generally doesn't cost much. Certainly not more than 5 figures.
  - zztop44 4y ago
    You’re free to negotiate whatever contract you want with the voice actors you hire.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      That's what they did in the case of the recent Bayonetta controversy. They actually paid less for the replacement than they were expecting to pay the original actor who wanted more.
      - ekianjo 4y ago
        And the game will still sell very well anyway. Problem solved.
  - trhr 4y ago
    A man sails his smoking yacht into a repair shop. The head mechanic goes over with a hammer and slams it against the side of the engine. The engine roars back to life, and the smoke subsides. He submits a bill for $200,000. It is itemized as such: - $1 - Fifteen seconds of labor; striking with hammer - $199,999 - Knowing where to strike
    - squirtlebonflow 4y ago
      Your hyperbole undermines your point.
      - trhr 4y ago
        I'm not sure I had a point. I kind of picked a number I thought Julian would have been happy with, since E$20,000 wasn't it.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > Voice acting is a hard job, and it takes more time than a “few hours” to get good at it. If you think anyone can do it certainly you can just pay an anybody to do it. So it takes a long time to learn how to take good pictures, and therefore every picture you take after being good should be worth 5k USD or something? that's not how things work at all. > Voice acting is a hard job, So all other jobs are easy? That's again pretentiousness at play.
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nmfisher 4y ago

That was my reaction too, 20,000 (euros) seems quite decent for a tiny freelance engagement, and just skimming the contract, that all seems bog-standard, too. If he didn't think the money was fair, he shouldn't have accepted it. I expect Mojang would have simply pulled the plug and gone with someone else if he had done so. This really just smacks of sour grapes that Mojang was sold for squillions and the author feels entitled to some of that. Legalities aside (the absence of aa signed contract may be a problem) but I don't feel he is morally entitled to anything more than he's already received.

wheels 4y ago
Indeed. This was a great deal for the writer. He wasn't part of the team. He was a contract writer. €20k is a lot of dosh for a few pages of text. It smacks of trivializing all of the work of the people who spent months working on it because he feels like he didn't get a big enough piece of the pie. It sounds like that got lost in the fog of war, because otherwise they'd just have said, "Ok, that's enough. We'll just hire someone else for half the price." I honestly suspect the €20k figure was, "Let's offer him a big enough number so that we don't have to be distracted by negotiating this." And then began the long-winded and self-important wall-of-text emails.
Moru 4y ago
Mojang was not a tiny indie company though, it already sold millions of copies before the release. Yes, he should have let his agent negotiate the contract. Do what you are good at and let others do what they are good at.
- dcow 4y ago
  One can both be a small indie studio and also have sold multiple millions of copies of their game. Indie simply means you don't have a publisher. And Mojan didn't.
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    Then Activision-Blizzard is indie. You have to at least put a floor on that thing or you fall completely afoul of the common meaning. My rule of thumb would be less than $1 million spent before the first public release ? (Which I assume makes Minecraft indie ?) Now another question is whether you can even call indie those games being advertised and distributed by Steam (or any other platform) where developers are overwelmingly dependent on that platform for like 95%+ of their sales (including keys from third party websites still for that platform) - because dealing with advertisers and distributors was also an extremely important part of the job when games still came in boxes !

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pbhjpbhj 4y ago

The problem with that line of thinking is that Minecraft itself is not worth $2.5 Billion of programmer's time under the same type of analysis. The ending is like the smile on Mona Lisa in my opinion. You can probably pay someone a few hundred dollars to paint that smile ...

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[deleted]